Mental Health Awareness: Decreasing Your Stress

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Mental health is our overall psychological well-being. Taking care of our mental health is important because it affects the way we feel, our relationships, and ability to handle difficulties that come our way. Stress is an important part of mental health and can affect all of those mentioned above. Here are a few helpful tips in decreasing your stress level to help your mental health.

1. Identify Your Stressors

In order to decrease your stress level you need to first identify the things that stress you out the most. Are there certain activities or even people that should be on your list?

2. Unnecessary Commitments

A lot of us tend to put other people before ourselves. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes it can be a source of stress in your life. Is there a commitment that you can possibly eliminate? Put your commitments that have the most value first and then slowly weed out those that maybe aren’t as necessary.

3. Slow Down

We live in a very fast-paced world. It’s ok to slow things down once in a while instead of rushing through to complete everything that we feel we need to. Take the time to enjoy the things around you instead of rushing so fast you miss it.

4. Relax

Take mini-breaks during your day! Just stop what you’re doing every once in a while – this is part of slowing down. Take the time to do something that you like and take care of yourself. It’s ok to take time for yourself.

5. Exercise

With our busy lives this is a really hard thing to do. Exercising itself is also hard, but it has its positive points. Exercise is a huge de-stressor and gives us an opportunity to work on ourselves and build up more energy to keep up with our busy lives.

6. Eat Healthy

Have you ever noticed how you feel after you eat a huge greasy hamburger? Sometimes it hits the spot, but other times I don’t like the way I feel after I eat junk food. It also doesn’t give you enough energy that you need like healthy food can to keep up with our busy lives.

7. Eliminate the Small Things

There are a lot of things that all of us do that only adds to our stress level. Some of those things might be procrastinating, being disorganized and messy, being late, having to control everything, multitasking, etc. Those are some things that can be easily taken care of and eliminated to make us happier and less stressed.

8. De-Stressing Activities

Pick up some new activities that will help you relieve your stress. Activities may include journaling, meditation, yoga, deep breathing, laughing, listening to music, taking a walk, and/or enjoying your long lost hobby that got lost in the shuffle of everyday life.

Your mental health is important! Decrease your stress level so you can take care of your well-being. You can't take care of anyone else if you don't first take care of yourself.